But even though he left Teesside aged just two when his family emigrated, Joel - a distant relative of singer Chris Rea - has never forgotten his Boro roots.

And with his artwork all the rage in Oz, the 29-year-old admits he’d love to display in his home town.

Born in 1983 at Parkside Maternity Hospital, Middlesbrough, he lived in Phillips Avenue until his parents David and Norma upped sticks and settled in Australia in 1985.

David owned and ran Aussies Bar and Blazers - now the Walkabout - until moving to Australia. He met Norma at Norton’s Club Fiesta, where she worked as a croupier.

But despite being Teesside born-and-bred, they and other family members decided to forge a new life in Australia. And the move certainly encouraged Joel’s artistic side.

After graduating in 2003 from the Queensland College of Art, he began painting profusely and, in 2006, his first solo exhibition of paintings, High Fidelity, was bought by a single international collector before opening night.

In 2007, aged 24, he achieved a record high price for a single painting, Killing Me Softly, which sold for AU$30,000.

Since then, his work has been in demand across Australia and he’s twice been a finalist in the Metro Art Award - the country’s richest award for artists aged under 35. His work - including a stunning three-metre reworking of Leonardo da Vinci’s piece The Last Supper - is currently part of a group exhibition in the Gold Coast City Art Gallery.

And yet still nagging away is a desire to be recognised in his home land.

He told the Gazette: “I visited Boro in 2008, and spent much time at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. In that world trip, I visited some of the world’s greatest galleries. A dream come true would be to come back and feature in an exhibition - mima hopefully?

“It would be about my connections with Boro through my parents and their hundreds of stories, and a family being still raised by Boro traditions far away in the land down under.”